The Denon is an unbelievable receiver. It is a huge improvement over my Sony 2ES receiver that it replaced. I believe this has more to do with the upgradeitis bug than anything. I was originally going to go with seperates using my 2ES for the pre pro but I really wanted to go 7.1 and the Sony didn't give me that option. I also really liked the idea of PLIIX on the 3805. Now I know everyone has their own opinion but since running 7.1 I would never go back to 6.1. I was running a direct radiating speaker directly behind the listening position (my couch is about 3' from the rear wall) and it was too disctracting. Some people advocate the use of direct firing for the rear surround but in my experience this is better used in larger rooms where you are quite a ways from the rear surrounds where the sound has a little time to spread out. I like the diffused sound of the QS series when placed close to the listening position. Running this setup I get a little more natural sounding rear sound the envelopes the listener no matter if you are in the sweet spot or not. Sorry to get off topic, back to the original question. The 3805 even though rated at 120X7, I bet is lucky to be putting out 65 per channel when all are driven. During demanding passages in action scenes I truly believe seperates will greatly improve the sound. Maybe someone who has seperates now can comment on the before after but I have heard it summed up like, "the sound is fuller, even at lower listening levels", "the bass is tighter", "the high's are crisper", etc. If you were scraping by to afford a HT system the Denon would do everything you ever needed it to but if you have a few extra bucks to spend I don't think you would regret going to a seperate amp to power everything. At least that's how I am justifying it. LOL
